In recent years, there has been an increasing trend of the use of electronic shopping basket applications and/or wish list applications for providing an Internet user a mechanism in which to temporarily store items (e.g., goods, services, and/or offers) prior to purchasing these items electronically and for providing the items to others so that others may purchase the items as a gift to the owner. Typically, these applications reside on a Web server of a merchant or shopping site and are limited to use only on that particular site. A user can visit the merchant's web site and/or shopping portal and temporarily store item's of interest in an electronic item list. The electronic item list can then be reviewed or e-mailed to a third party, such as a friend or family member, so that the third party may purchase these items for the user as a gift. The electronic item list can also be a temporary storage for the user, until the user decides to make a purchase of that item at a later time.
Most item lists are limited to providing only offers to the user, such that the user cannot enter general product categories or manufacturers of items into a user's item list. Additionally, the items that can be added to the user's item list are limited to items or offers residing at the particular site, therefore, item's not residing at the particular site cannot be added to the item list. In some cases portals have implemented electronic shopping lists that have aggregated items across merchants, but often these electronic shopping lists are burdened with similar limitations as discussed above. In some situations smaller merchants cannot afford the membership costs associated with membership of a shopping portal, the costs associated with having their own electronic item list system or may not have the critical mass to justify a single site shopping list. A smaller merchant may wish to participate in a portal shopping list with other merchants (e.g., for critical mass), or may wish to outsource the running of a list on their site to a third party. Another problem with lists is that an item list may employ a database system to retrieve items or offers that reside on a user's item list and once the item or offer is removed from the database (e.g., no longer offered by the merchant), the record is completely removed from the items list. Therefore, there is no current system or method that provides a user with alternatives to the offer or item that has been removed.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need in the art for a system and method that mitigates the above stated deficiencies with traditional electronic item list applications.